Monday, April 07, 2008

Today's photos show Anaheim shopping centers in the 1960s. The first (top) shows East Anaheim Center, at Lincoln at State College Blvd, in December 1966. East Anaheim Center incuded a Sav-on Drugs and a Grants department store.

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The second image shows Anaheim Plaza near the freeway and Euclid Ave around 1960. Anaheim Plaza was altered dramatically in the 1990s. New features included a postmodern take on large-scale roadside signage, bright colors, and one of the first Walmarts in Orange County.

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As long as we're talking about Anaheim, perhaps this is a good time to return to the subject of changing street names. Here are a few of the Anaheim street names that have changed over the years:

Anaheim St (in both Anaheim and Placentia) is now Miraloma Ave.

Anaheim-Olive Rd. and Center St. are both now (mostly) Lincoln Ave.

Dowling (in both Anaheim and Placentia), along with Carolina (in Placentia) is now Kraemer Blvd

Los Angeles St (the State Highway) is now Anaheim Blvd.Palm is now part of Harbor Blvd.

West St. (between the 5 Fwy and Katella) recently became S. Disneyland Dr.

11 comments:

No one would have called it Anaheim Plaza in the 1960s. Until it was enclosed and renamed in the 1970s, we knew it as the Broadway Shopping Center or Anaheim Center.

Nothing beat going to Woolworth’s or Quad’s. Well, except for shopping at Singer [Sewing Center] for albums before Licorice Pizza opened. Or hot roast beef sandwiches at Manning’s. Or school supplies at Sav-On. Or groovy shoes at C. H. Baker.

The East Anaheim Center was very close to where I grew up... don't remember the sign, but I was in that Sav-on Drugs and Grants many times. They remodeled that shopping center sometime around 1984 when I graduated from High School.

Chris--just to show political correctness is not new add our street to the list of street name changes:Was Hedwig (best said in your best Colonel Klink voice), is now Philadelphia (best said while waiving a flag in front of a fireworks display with Yankee Doodle Dandy playing in the background.

I think later in the 80s it was East Anaheim Plaza and there was both a Ralph's and a Market Basket. Then Ralph's bought MB and there were two Ralph's for a while. We lived in north Orange so State College and Lincoln was the closest mega-strip mall.

According to the August 7, 1958, Anaheim Gazette, the East Anaheim Center displayed James Dean's death car on August 29, 1958:

"Dean's Death Car To Be On Display

"James Dean's death car will attract attention from teenagers and perhaps grown-ups, too, when it is displayed at the East Anaheim shopping center August 29th according to present plans made by Jerry O'Keefe, amanger of an Anaheim car club. The Center will also be the focal point of a "poker run" to be made by members of car clubs in Orangee county who wish to participate. The poker run will start at 1 p. m. from various points on the run and will end at the corner of Anaheim-Olive Road and Placentia Avenue, known as the East Anaheim Center. There will be three winner trophies for the run, it was announced. The boys have also planned for a car show along with the showing of Dean's death car on August 29."

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